The Meaning of Death
by Savage Ink Spillage
Summary: Grievously wounded and alone, Sherlock begins to ponder his end and resist against it. Even when he is found, all is not well and the vague shadow of death still lurks. To survive, he must find out what tethers him to life, and he has only three certain Yarders to aid him with what could be his final problem. Graphic imagery, mild swearing, friendship only.
1. Chapter I

**The Meaning of Death**

No one knew where he had gone; not his loyal blogger, not his daft DI and, at this point, he doubted even his archenemy knew. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes didn't even know himself.

Such facts always mattered, of course they did, but when the scheme of things got grander they had lost most of their importance; no matter _where_ he was right now, _how_ was he going to continue being for the future?

As if from behind a waterfall he registered the arrhythmic shuffle and clank of the chains by which he was suspended. He felt the blade drag against and part his flesh, but didn't feel like pondering it; depth, pattern, he lived for such data in victims, but he couldn't inflict those same examinations on himself just yet; not until he felt doing so was no longer akin to scanning the room for an exit sign. The wielder of the knife drew back now, seemingly pleased with himself. Sherlock supposed he'd gotten a bit creative with the design… good for him. He'd carved FREAK into Sherlock's lower abdomen. A large, messy and uneven font; not too creative then. Though Sherlock supposed a more favourable title would've invited more letters onto him… EXOTIC, OUTLANDISH even!

It still ached to bare that mark, perhaps more than it did to actually _bare it_, and he supposed it always had somewhere far below the skin where he'd convinced himself nothing resided. Something did, of course, something small but entirely brave.

Sweat began to coat his lamely swaying body, blood crawling slowly downward, his breaths so harsh they offended even him; he was barely alive enough to verify his own misery. It had been too long… _how long had it been again_?

When the face of his assailant appeared before him, Sherlock was again struck by how desperately ugly it was.

"Listen up then, Freak, we'll be going now, yeah?" positively _freakish_ teeth were shown in a horror of a grin. Nothing came forth from Sherlock's mouth beyond a lazy dribble of blood.

"Aw, chin up, lad! You won't be alone for long! Be sure to give 'em the heads up, yeah?" Sherlock couldn't fathom what the man was on about, and he didn't care either; it took such effort to be obstinate, and, as tediously _human _as it may be to tire, he had. He was _exhausted_ in fact.

Pathetic to dangle there at the mercy of not even the maddest of men, but Sherlock acknowledged it as the only thing left for him in this life. Briefly, very briefly, the great Sherlock Holmes prepared himself to greet death as an old friend. _He was_, after all; death got him a job, death clothed, fed and housed him. He owed everything to death. Death and John Watson. It came down to which friend he wanted to encounter most.

_John._

And with that, that good old Holmsian spirit kicked up again and he prepared himself for battle, he prepared himself to fight his way into his chair opposite… that other chair, with the one man with enough influence to keep death at bay awaiting him with freshly brewed tea. Though he supposed Mycroft would send a legion of highly trained agents at it and give it a good whack with his umbrella for good measure. Lestrade would _make _it his division and try to order it away, good old Mrs. Hudson would give it a right good scolding and send it off with a fresh slice of pie, Molly Hooper would very, _very _kindly ask it to leave… and Sherlock, the _sociopath_, would stop at nothing to keep it away from them.

He supposed that meant he shouldn't die. So he decided not to.

The assailant wasn't as ugly from behind, though he sure came pretty far. "As I understand it, there are some yarders on their way… something about a murder victim found in these parts? Reckon they'll appreciate that bit of craft there!" he disappeared for some time, leaving Sherlock ample time to imagine every shade of glee that would colour Anderson and Donovan's faces when they saw. Saw… _it._

He reappeared, still entirely nameless, though regretfully not faceless. In his unsightly talons he clutched a box with salt in it. Actual _salt_.

Speech might've come in handy now, but Sherlock's entire vocabulary was currently cowering behind a particularly heavy door in his Mind Palace.

"No!" oh, not all of it then… _No_ had always leapt eagerly off his tongue; no wonder it was the first word to rush to his aid.

"Sorry mate, nothing personal… just like seeing people squirm is all." oh the deductions that could be made off the back of such boundless cruelty… cast out of every social circle his life had ever known, never shown love but began to mistake fear for respect at a tender age and just ran with that. All the way into the underworld. This was what a true sociopath did to get his kicks, and it took the nonchalant sprinkling of salt into a grievous wound to convince Sherlock Holmes he wasn't one.

Chains were let loose, a dull thud resounded; a limp man's body thrown against concrete.

The concrete was cold, but the body was infested by heat and flame and the great mind unfortunate enough to inhabit it thought only of mercy… an _ice man_, a doctor, Mike –_fucking_– Stamford with a fire extinguisher… _anything_.

A man was screaming. Harsh, excruciating wails desperately telegraphing this tale of misery to the world… Sherlock didn't realize he could make such ghastly noises, but when it dawned on him they were in fact _his_, he was glad of it; this, here, was the last of the fight he had in him, so let them know he died _fighting_. Died like a soldier, like a Holmes, like a brave man. It might soothe the ones he'd be leaving behind, so he gave them what he could.

Even when his vocal chords had to yield and silence themselves, his body was not given rest; long elegant fingers tried to _claw_ the offending minerals off the jagged lettering, body writhing, muscles and tendons straining against unseen barbed bonds as some foreign flame licked his earthly vessel clean of peace and autonomy.

Footsteps approached, then halted, and a lone pair of feet braved the final distance to have their owner kneel near Sherlock.

"_Shit, shit… _Sherlock!" Lestrade cursed, trying to pry his consulting detective's hands off the _mess_ they guarded. "C'mon, Sherlock… let me see. It's okay, it's- I won't hurt you, yeah?" Sherlock's eyes slowly focussed on the DI, frowning and trying to speak. Leaning in to where Sherlock's lips were almost touching his right earlobe, Lestrade caught the vague enunciations as they drifted past on an exhale; "Les-Lestrade, Le… get it. G-Get i' out. _Please! Pl…_" _get what?_

"S-Salt, _S-S-Salt_." oh. Fuck. Sherlock continued to breathe in desperate, choppy gasps, his hands now fisted at his side. "_Anderson, Donovan! _Help him! Donovan; get some water, Anderson, restrain him." Sally dived toward her backpack immediately, but Anderson was reluctant to use force on the supposed freak. Not when the word both he and Sally championed was right there mocking his every good intention. What would force actually do, anyway? He'd _break_ the man!

"Get a move on, Anderson!" so there it was, the strange tableau; three yarders huddled around an ailing acquaintance. A colleague that wasn't. Sally rinsed the salt out of the wound as quickly as she could, applying pressure to staunch the last of the sluggish bleeding when she was done. Anderson was in charge of keeping Sherlock's lower body still whilst Lestrade cradled his upper body in his lap, whispering whatever reassurances he could come up with.

"Help will be here soon, Sherlock. The paramedics said they were five minutes away when we radioed them last." they should've been there already, actually… but Lestrade figured time slowed in such dire situations. They would come.

Suddenly, gunshots were heard somewhere in the distance.

"Are they coming for us?" Sally asked, readying her weapon even as he spoke.

"N-No." there was a responding salvo right after this, proving Sherlock right; there were two parties in combat here.

"Alright… ours?"

"Mine." Sherlock said, slightly smug still. Mycroft might've been an interfering git, but the man sure had timing.

"Full of surprises, eh?"

"_Greg_…" this started Lestrade out of his relief; for him to not only _remember_ the name but actually utilize it as well, the following must've _really_ mattered. "Sherlock… you _remembered!_" Greg smiled, shifting Sherlock in his arms. It was a shameless deflection, but help was coming. Help was _actually_ coming, and that meant they didn't have to do this.

"P-Please _Greg… _if I… if I don't…"

"You will, Sherlock. Don't throw in the towel now. You've tried too hard for that, mate, I can't let you. John would kill me, Sherlock; I can't." the mention of John caused Sherlock to inhale sharply, causing a momentary spike of pain severe enough to bring tears to the eyes of his greatest tormentors. Donovan's hand found its way into a sweat slicked wealth of curls and stayed there, trying to soothe him. All three yarders tried to comfort him, calling him by his first name and seeking some form of contact. To anchor him, perhaps… and in the end that's what they accomplished; Sherlock touched the shores of death briefly, a warm and peaceful sort of place. Tranquil. The sort of place he'd claimed to hate because he couldn't be happy there, not with such a demanding mind, but he'd always wished he could be. To take a holiday and worry about nothing but the sand in your trunks, it felt amazing… but he knew he had a life. Harder, colder than this, but he enjoyed it. It must really be one worth returning to if people who claimed to hate him tried so hard to keep him in their midst… so he did, he returned.

When he opened his eyes again, he was still laying in the warehouse, weaker and colder for the strength and warmth he'd just abandoned. Greg greeted his newly opened eyes with tears and an unsteady smile, and more footsteps could be heard in the distance. Fast, running, the squeaking of wheels.

Mycroft ran to his fallen brother's side, murderous anger rising at the familiar slur adorning his chest, but he stowed it away to save for later and laid a hand on Sherlock's head, leaning in close to assure he'd be heard.

"I'm here now, Sherlock. I'll take care of it." the prone Holmes tried to respond, but Mycroft wouldn't let him. "Spare your strength now, little brother… you've done well." the voice of the British Government had never come as near to silence as it did right then. Deep affection shone through the cultured tones, convincing the thus far disbelieving policemen that Sherlock Holmes _did_ have a brother and that this was indeed him.

"Thank you for tending to my brother in my absence… I owe you a great deal. I trust the two of you know that _that word_ must never be uttered in my brother's company ever again? I heard you were rather fond of it." The paramedics had loaded Sherlock onto a stretcher and the rest of the conversation took place somewhere beside it as they made their way out.

Slowly, swathed in the safety of leads and lines and transfusions, Sherlock let himself slip into unconsciousness.

* * *

**Author's Note: This'll likely be a two shot. More to follow tomorrow, if there's any interest! There's a reason this is tagged with John after all.**


	2. Chapter II

Life, which had seemed frenzied just moments before, had left the ambulance at about the same time it did Sherlock. When the merciless flatline belted out its haunting tune, it left a DI and a Government paralyzed. Mycroft had risen from his seat on the overly narrow bench at the first signs of trouble, risen, but not moved any further. It was there, in suspension, that he seemed saddest. Lestrade had let his head fall, squeezing his eyes so tightly shut he could almost feel the veins straining against the pressure. He knew corpses, he had seen more than his fair share of them, but nowhere in his visual memory did he want Sherlock Holmes bleached by death and labelled by the toe. It couldn't be.

It just _couldn't_ be! The petty squabble between the two greatest minds in perhaps the world could end like this, it could, but it _couldn't_ between brothers, and they had both carried a deep understanding that no matter whatever else they were to each other, they had been brothers soonest. And they shared a mind; they shared an affliction. Now, Mycroft was alone. Had he known how his brother's peers would make a freak out of him, he wouldn't have helped him become such an endlessly advanced creature. No reading the newspapers together when the blue-eyed little sod was barely out of nappies, no deducing the vulgar and adulturous lot their parents invited for dinner parties; no Latin, no Greek, no Mind Palace... they would've played _pirates_ longer; until the day gave in to night and the captain of the fleet hung over the boatsman's shoulder fast asleep. Had he known his brother might die a freak, he would've rounded up every resource he'd ever had and built him an average life.

He remembered so clearly now, on the day he left for University, those sharp, old eyes fixed on him from somewhere much nearer to the floor... begging him to stay. And he'd wanted to. But education had brought him great things, that's what he'd always said. Education brought him here.

_Right here_.

Oh, to be an idiot and _live..._

* * *

Death was indeed very quiet. Very soft, sheltered, it felt like something entirely safe. Of course... once death caught you, what else would?

"Good day, Mr. Holmes... heard you had a long one?" Death peered at Sherlock over the top of its glasses, seemingly bored with it all. It wore its hair short and neatly parted, owned a plaid dress-shirt and proper brown courduroy trousers.

"_Short_, more like." deadpanned the dead man. Death awarded him with a chuckle, shifting some papers on its lap. "Do I get a choice?"

"Is that what Hollywood came up with now? God, I love that place... business hasn't been this good since the Dark Ages! To answer your question; no." it turned to look Sherlock in the eye. Rather than being vacant and betray this entity as soulless, they bustled and fizzed with the lives of _millions. _"It ain't all malice and greed, y'know... there are regulations, _rules! _I gotta do my job! No choices there, honestly!" it never raised its voice, it didn't yield to anger, it just remained calm and explained why it did as it _had to. _No empty sentiments, no threats, no promises... Death was a very factual kind of thing. Definitive.

Sherlock could appreciate its candidness. He'd always been that sort of man, to the point it became painful.

"You don't get a choice, Mr. Holmes: You get to fight." it almost sounded like he was asking Sherlock to do so, like this practical and benign version of the Reaper needed someone to get justice for those whom criminals thrust into his arms.

"I will." said Sherlock.

And he would: he would stride up those seventeen steps - crutches or no, and he _would _allow to coddle him for the socially acceptable length of time before kindly showing her the door, then drop down on his beloved couch and renounce movement until he could abandon said couch without pissing off one John Hamish Watson. Before then, said Watson would of course be appointed the noble task of _butler_.

"Alright then!" the words frolicked forth with a lightness that should be foreign to Death, but faced with it, Sherlock wasn't entirely surprised.

Death held out a hand, pink, fleshy just like others. Never skin stretched over bone and never grey washed over white; just an average hand. Hollywood always warped those things, didn't it?

"Alright." the hands moved upward, downward, dragged from their mutual hold with a firm squeeze in parting.

The sensation that followed would forever be hard to describe... it felt as though some collosus grabbed Sherlock, and then, as if in the midst of an unholy tantrum, threw him back onto the earth. After the impact, he came to life again. Dazed but calm on a stretcher, staring at the faces of his brother, Lestrade and _John._

* * *

Things moved very fast after the flatline - fast, but without clarity. Neither Mycroft nor Lestrade could recall much of it later, and both were grateful for this: Sherlock had been dead for the brunt of it, it didn't bare remembering.

They arrived, Sherlock bucking wildly against the restraints as an eletrical current flowed through him. John stood near the entrance, having been briefed by Mycroft just moments before. All soldier's calm and stoic professionalism, he barely faltered before aiding the paramedics in their mission to save a life. It took a long while, the longest any present life had ever known, but they did it.

Sherlock didn't come to like others had... he didn't stay unconscious, he didn't come to with a sharp inhale and wild eyes; he simply opened his eyes, focused briefly on the three men huddled around him with absolutely idiotic smirks on their faces, and dropped off again, seemingly satisfied.

"_Fucking Hell..._" the DI exclaimed, slumping in some generic back-busting waiting room chair.

"Fucking Hell indeed," the British Government looked overthrown, in a state of disarray no one had ever seen him before, but he just straightened his dress shirt and carried on, hand curled around a phantom umbrella.

Now, all there was left to do was wait.

And wait they did, until finally Sherlock was wheeled out of surgery. The grave stencil pressed onto his chest was skillfully obliterated by the best cosmetic surgeon in the world - courtesy of Mycroft's seemingly limitless influence, and that same influence got the younger Holmes a gigantic room on a secluded ward.

His current resting place, thankfully less than permanent, would've fit at least three other people under it's covers. If those people all had Sherlock's build, probably at least _seven._

A day passed before he opened his eyes again, a day in which John attempted to read a book, and slowly came to realize he'd simply read the very same page about _fifty times_. Discarding the book (he'd even forgotten the title by now), he sat up to notice a very familiar pair of eyes tracking him.

"Sherlock! Why didn't you tell me you were awake?" John received his answer in the weak gasp that followed, although it might have been a mewl. If Sherlock did such things, that is... and he resolutely _was not _the mewling kind.

John slowly spoon-fed him some ice chips, patient and gentle as ever. Sherlock thought he'd be _pissed_... surely death fell quite securely in the _bit not good _category?

"I'm... g-glad to see you." never before had such hesitance graced Sherlock's words, at least not in _their _conversations.

"I'm glad to see you too, Sherlock..." John's hand hovered above the overly luxurious blanket that covered his friend, until he finally gave in to his instinct and took a long and unmarred hand in his.

"Aren't you... mad?" John wanted to dispel that ridiculous assumption immediately, but when he prepared to do so he noticed Sherlock had averted his eyes, _scared _almost.

"_No,_ you idiot. I'm... I'm _fucking happy_! And proud. Heard it wasn't easy on you, Sherlock. You did well! Why the Hell would I be mad?" fond exasperation drove the soldier out of his grandiose armchair and into Sherlock's personal space. Well, technically: the edge of _this__ bed _came nowhere near Sherlock.

"Because I died. That's n-not good, is it?" _Ah._

"It _isn't_, no. Not at all, I'm afraid. Not your fault though, was it?"

"I suppose not." the weak voice grew weaker. The memory of the pain it had to endure chased a shiver through Sherlock's body.

"It's over now, Sherlock... I'm sure your brother will make them keep you on the good stuff a while yet. Don't worry."

An eye-roll was all Sherlock could conjure up by way of response.

"...What was it like, being dead?"

"'s Nice, actually. Death's just a bureaucrat with an odd sense of humor."

_Nice? _

"Wait... Sherlock..."

"I won't be returning, John... don't be dramatic." with these words, Sherlock floated off into dreams of obscenely high thread counts.

"Of course _I'm _the dramatic one. You're the one that died, you _git!_"

**...TBC...**

**Last Chapter in a few days... circumstance kept me away from my blessed keyboard longer than I had anticipated and I apologize!**


End file.
